This time I need your two cents.
How do you manage the anxiety and fear that comes with having children?
My heart pauses a thousand times of day. I hit mini cardiac arrest every time the baby manages something worthy of Huggies X Games. I would like to think that I will become less fearful but I know the teenage years will bring on things that make a trip to the ER and a few stitches a piece of cake. I think about the women I have known. I think how they have been hurt and attacked in violent ways.
I know that I can teach my children about choices, safety and values. However, I also know that there are intelligent women who do everything right and still find themselves in harms way. Once I became a mother every woman, every child that makes the news is MY child. These pieces of horror that make the news hit me harder than contractions ever did. When I was pregnant I wanted my children in my arms so that I knew they were safe. Now I realize having them tucked away under my heart was the closest to safe they ever were in this crazy world. My mother visited last April and that was the first time I went anywhere without my girls. I have not left them since. I am a crazy neurotic mom. Just writing this post makes me feel a sudden onset of complete and total heart failure.
My heart pauses a thousand times of day. I hit mini cardiac arrest every time the baby manages something worthy of Huggies X Games. I would like to think that I will become less fearful but I know the teenage years will bring on things that make a trip to the ER and a few stitches a piece of cake. I think about the women I have known. I think how they have been hurt and attacked in violent ways.
I know that I can teach my children about choices, safety and values. However, I also know that there are intelligent women who do everything right and still find themselves in harms way. Once I became a mother every woman, every child that makes the news is MY child. These pieces of horror that make the news hit me harder than contractions ever did. When I was pregnant I wanted my children in my arms so that I knew they were safe. Now I realize having them tucked away under my heart was the closest to safe they ever were in this crazy world. My mother visited last April and that was the first time I went anywhere without my girls. I have not left them since. I am a crazy neurotic mom. Just writing this post makes me feel a sudden onset of complete and total heart failure.
The topic is parenting but topic choices are optional. It is YOUR two cents so please dish it out as you see fit!
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Next Week's Topic: Inspiration.
Where do you find it? What inspires you? When do you need it? Or anything else that you have two cents on. The only requirement is that your two cents is free and that you play nice.
Where do you find it? What inspires you? When do you need it? Or anything else that you have two cents on. The only requirement is that your two cents is free and that you play nice.
25 comments:
This is what my wise and child rearing sister says..."You just do" You know that it is healthy for your kids to do things other than sit in the house with you. So you prepare them the best you can. You teach them about privacy and their bodies and that other people shouldn't be in their business. You teach them to take care of themselves. Because as much as you want to be...Mom's aren't generally there when the real important stuff happens. Mommy paranoia is normal. Holding your child's hand every time they leave the house until the age of 30...not so much.
How's that for a paragraph?
My oldest fell off her bike yesterday and got some serious scrapes. It hurt me as well. Even now thinking of her in pain makes me shutter and gives me goose bumps. We usually can't physiacally protect them but what we do with them every day sure makes a difference in most other situations.
"Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain" ~~Sir Walter Besant~~
That's one of my favorite quotes TuTu and THIS is one of my favorite blogs :)
Steady On
Reggie Girl
here's my two cents - somewhere between having siblings who were much younger than i am and my first daughter's one year old birthday, i realized that children are durable, flexible and quite hard to kill unless you are doing it deliberately. a parents' job, in my opinion, is to put yourself out of the job and so everything i did was aimed at making sure they could cope with things - from how to boil water to how to cross a street to how to drive a car - as best i could. then i figured it was up to them. my worst experience with this has always been with my son, who was a daredevil from the get go. at 15 mos he learned to climb in and out of his crib despite my best efforts to the contrary. eventually i gave up and let him climb in and out. when he got a speeding ticket for doing 92 on the interstate (at 19) i figured that his life was in his hands and if he chose to end it early, that was going to be on him. my goal was simply to get him to 21 alive and from there, he was responsible for himself. i dont feel my job is as much about protecting my kids as about preparing them.
I have a soon to be teenager, and one that's shortly turning five. All those heart palpalations they don't leave, at least for me they haven't. But, this is the way I see it...I'm a paranoid, over protective mother. It's my job to make sure that my kids are safe, to know that I've gone out of my way to make it so. That's what being a parent is. And when you get to the point that you realize, you can no longer hold their hand, you can still be there, you can still guide them in the right directions, and be there if they don't. And love them no matter who they turn out to be....
Oh, I know how you feel...FO SURE!!! I am constantly worrying about the kids and trying to keep them safe....yet at the same time, wanting them to learn to do things on their own!!
How do you manage the anxiety and fear that comes with having children?
By taking it one day at a time. I think. lol.
Very good advice from Mary Teresa. You teach them to take care of themselves-- key. =)
Happy Tuesday!
Before I had kids my grandmother told me 'You do everything you can to teach them how to be safe and then they go out the door and all you can do is hope it stuck with them.' I used to laugh and say nah..I'll know EVERYTHING my kids do. Yeah right...it is ok though. Once they get to the point of 'on their own' it's amazing how much does stick with them :)
And this is why I avoid the news or pick and choose what I read from the news. I can't wear myself out with worry. I have to love them and teach them the way to make right choices and stand up for themselves. If I do that, they'll be alright.
I hope I did this right. Now I just have to grab the button and I will be all set. Great topic. Can not wait until next week. Have a great day.
I felt the same way once I became a mother. The world just seemed like a scarier place. And of course watching the news and/or reading stories can be scary as well. Anytime I hear a story about a child being hurt or dying, it breaks my heart, as if it were my own child.
I guess all we can do is provide them with the knowledge they need to keep themselves safe and hope they make good choices as they grow older.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Glad I could make you laugh!
I don't worry about the choices they will make. Even now. Not to say it doesn't concern me but my heart I do NOT stress about consensual bad behavior. It is not the things that she will do or the trouble she will create. I know I can do my best and trust in them. It is the things that can be done "to" them. A man reaches an age where, in general, he can go for a jog or walk to the car and feel relativly safe. A woman has to worry about so much more than someone taking her wallet. The news does not help. In my home state there is a greater sentence for owning the ingredients to make meth than violently attacking a child.
i love it...and i'm anxious but sometimes i fault on the side of "it can wait". my paige, def walked on a broken leg for 3 months because she said her leg "kinda hurt"...yep. i can be mom of the year!
I just discovered Two Cents (Thank you to Sarah at I Blame My Mother).
I suffer from mommy anxiety too, my husband is constantly telling me to relax.
Great advice from some of the previous posters. I'm personally trying to find a balance between keeping them safe and keeping them smothered. Common sense and a lot of deep breathing seems to help.
I don't even know how to answer. But, you definitely have me thinking. Thinking about what I was taught and what I learned.
And, I just know that I will worry all of the days of my life about them.
Your words about being safe under your heart ring so true!!
What I fool I was for wishing those 9 months away - idiot.
I've chastised my mother she should have really sat me down and told me, again, and again, about the whole worry thing. I don't think she stressed that enough.
A little pay back?
ThankS! For Your WOnderful comment! I'm pretty new well this blog is and I love what i do PLease take a button for your blog :D
ummmm yeah. I agree 100% with nearly all of your post. I do leave my child with my parents...and my sitter, but it isn't easy...and I'm certainly not easy to work with. I have rules....and they are annoying. LOL
I'm with you. Mama looney bin, here I come!
Thanks for visiting my blog. I love yours. Such an insightful blog. I think part of what you mentioned is why I think I don't want kids. It scares me honestly. I have plenty of nieces and nephews, although I know it's not the same. I will definitely continue to ready your blog. Thanks for sharing.
I am a hugely paranoid and overprotective mother and proud to be just that! That being said, I do try my best to guide them so that they will have very strong wings come time to leave the nest!
I don't know how to reassure you TuTu. All four of our children are grown.
There were definately some crazy, funny,sad, scary moments in our lives.
All's I can tell you is that none of them are on drugs (well not the hard kind....that we know of, lol), in jail or hobo's.
You will do a magnificent job. Trust your gut.....it's never wrong :)
Steady On
Reggie Girl
I don't know that the fear/anxiety will ever go away. The middle chicklet was in a horrific car wreck when he was 4 and was airlifted to the hospital. I thought he was dead; thank the Lord his injuries were minimal. But there's not a day that does by that I don't get those flutters if one of them is late. If they sleep too long, I have to go in and make sure they are breathing. I think it's just part of being a Mommy.
It is hard to think about what might happen. But if you worry to much about the "might happens" you might miss out on the all good fun that happens all along. I too stress about what may happen but I try to concentrate on the here and now. It helps me get through it.
I finally had to stop thinking of all the things my kids could be doing to hurt themselves, while I'm away.
I'm not a mom, so I'm not crazy yet...
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